October 27, 2011

Chicago

This is the second batch of my Chicago photos.  In fact, I took tons of photos in Chicago.  The city was so beautiful.
A lot of people recommended the architectural boat tour, and I did join it.  The tour is run by Chicago Architectural Foundation and the guides are all volunteers.
A wonderful tour.
I wanted to check out the names of the buildings I saw, but well, hope one day you will get on the boat and figure them out yourself. ;) 

The thing is, the old and new buildings, they all have stories. Contexts. The reason why they look like they do.  And the reasons are, unlike in Japan, not something solely governed by the unseen lines in the air (height regulation and such), but the city's history and design motifs and people's lives.  They are very well educated group of architects, indeed.

There are the classical ones,
... and the quite unique ones,
and the ones that reflects them on their surfaces.







And, Mies' masterpiece.






So many buildings have great textures and details.  Even Seven Eleven is housed in a historic building.


The other thing I loved was that the lower parts of the buildings are parking lots (like below).  So, you don't see vast open concrete surfaces in the city center.

And some pretty alleys and balconies.  I'd LOVE to live in this corner room...!!!!!!




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